The present invention relates to an automatic pickup system.
On production and packing plants employing reels of strip material, such as paper, plastic film, foil or similar, various sections of the plant must be supplied with reels of, at times, considerable weight and normally differing widely in size. For this purpose, movable robots are currently employed, for picking up the reels off loading stations (pallets), depositing them on to stands integral with the robot, and transferring them to the plant loading devices. For gripping the reel when transferring it from the loading station to the stand, and from the stand to the plant loader, the robots feature an articulated arm fitted on the end with a circular gripping member by which the reel is normally retained by means of a vacuum. Due to the widely differing inside and/or outside diameters of the reels employed on complex plants, the useful suction portion of the circular gripping member is in the form of a ring, the outside and inside diameters of which are respectively equal to the smallest outside diameter and largest inside diameter of the reels.
For the reel to be gripped properly by the articulated arm, the gripping member must be centered in relation to the type of reel being picked up, which, as the reel coordinates at the loading stations are seldom accurately known, and no provision is made for the assistance of an operator, necessarily involves providing the gripping member with an automatic centering system.